Retail Has Disconnected Itself From the Consumer, So Here's What To Do About It.

The merging of?commerce and content?continues with a few interesting innovations and is something that reinforces the view that shopping is as much a 'social' experience as it is a 'transactional' one.

Those that have worked out that we all prefer to enjoy fun, engaging, and sometimes car crash TV (MissGuided) about the?retail sector?are pioneering the way forward.

I was talking to a few people in retail the other day about how eCommerce and the US style homogenisation format for multiple retailing has forever changed the UK retail landscape including the way people go about shopping, or not as the case might be!.

Having discussed our thoughts on how best to revive the retail high street we all agreed that the growth in ecommerce, access to entertainment, and the ability to connect with people all around the globe has been some of the key innovations that's come from the early days of the internet.

And as we now know has also managed to upend many a laggard in the retail sector around the world.

I raised a provocation: "eCommerce has now arrived at the same homogenised point in time as it's physical counterpart and as a result has managed to disconnect from the consumer even more than the High Street".

The key part of the conversation was mainly around how today the whole industry spends most of its time obsessing about ways to get customers to the eCommerce website, ensuring that the onsite journey is easy, and hoping that journey turns into a commercial sale.?

So much so that most websites (mobile and Apps) try and automate everything in order they can reduce any real human interaction which in turn can keep cost down.

Long before this global pandemic the role of the CMO was being questioned.?

Covid has shone an extremely bright light on the ability of the CMO to deliver growth when resource and marketing (advertising) budgets have been decimated and people were told to 'stay at home'.

As the role sleep walked over the 'programmatic' years into downgrading itself as the 'company bullhorn' it seems that CEO's and dare I say it, employees and shareholders alike were asking themselves just where is the value?

Tenure of the CMO has become shorter over the years (average 18 months) due in the main to confusion around the role and it's place in business 'growth and transformation'.?

As such we see a constant turnstile of leaders in multi-channel retailing (other sectors do apply) in particular CEO's and CMO's who leave one failed company with a chunky pay-off and pre-Covid end up in another struggling business simply repeating what they did before - we all know what comes next!

BUT, it got me thinking - is this all at the cost of commoditizing a void between real human interaction without the building a relationship and providing that all important ROX - 'return on experience'?.

With the growth of the multiple retail homogenisation model along with a centralised 'command and control' hierarchy consumers were already growing weary of the bland, cloned, and diluted experience.

Covid and 'work from home' messages gave a glint of revival hope to the local retail high st where people suddenly decided it was probably safer and more convenient to 'shop locally'

Today's smart retailer is not only addressing retail 'aesthetics' with a tweak here and there to the store design and layout, they are also testing and trialling new concept stores. The really socially and digitally savvy ones are also experimenting with 'social' experiences that can look to immerse, engage, and encourage 2 way conversations between the consumer and the retailer, thus providing a real time feedback loop from physical locations.

With the huge growth in eCommerce I think we've subconsciously become disconnected from the customer.?Every bit of evidence suggest that whilst brands obsess about getting us to the site and then to the checkout in a friction-less manner they've forgotten to 'listen'.

Just like the physical counterparts it's all very 'functional and transactional', it's bland, it's solitary, and as a result has it managed to isolate brand and customer?.

As we've slowly forgotten to 'listen and engage' I believe we have managed to disconnect ourselves from the social aspect of shopping that became so enjoyable back in the day.?

The onset of the digital era broadened the duties of CMOs in a big way, as marketing was entwined with data and the full customer experience.?

Forrester's report highlights the case of KFC, where the CMO controls innovation, marketing, operations, media and sales, a breadth of control that "allows ideas to come to life quickly and be delivered to customers with strategic agility." Now that's a lot of juggling and requires a clearly defined and proven skill set, something that goes way beyond managing a marketing 'communications' team and managing an advertising budget.

I see it all the time especially from the C-Suite who operate a?'do as I say - not as I do'?mentality around the growth and use of social media.

We never hear from them (the CMO) unless they suddenly want to inform us they have moved onto yet another lofty position, or as is the case today due to Covid?'I NEED YOUR HELP!'.

Marketing transformation today has more to do with a better understanding around how, where, and most important 'why' your potential customers are wanting to access information about your product and company over your competitor - for most of them, regardless if your in B2C or B2B happens to be via 'Social Media'.

Today they are wanting to do this in a way that doesn't include trying to navigate your website funnel, or going to Google.

In my opinion the future of?streaming content?is inevitably going commerce.?

Shopify?are one of those companies who do a much better job than most helping to leverage those young?start-ups?to get a business going right from their kitchen.?

They really do get the?'social media'?entrepreneur and recognise that?'social commerce'?is not a fad - its the future.

By leveraging the millions of?'work from home'?people with their lofty entrepreneurial ambitions prior to this crisis, they are now on course to?supercharge the model?as more and more people are either furloughed, preparing for redundancy, or have already created that replacement?income stream.

It seems that today's customer is tomorrow's competitor.

Today It seems that the most relatable retail brands have taken a serious look at 'social media' and chosen to leverage it in order to build a tribe, get to know that tribe, listen to that tribe, educate and inform that tribe.

With 60% of people on one social platform or another around the world simply handing social media to the guy with the beard, or the girl with the tattoo in marketing doesn't really cut it today.?

Social media requires a strategy that sits across the entire business enterprise - WHY?

Because that's how today's social savvy consumer 'experiences' what you say you do.